[This lecture was originally delivered in November 2021 as part of the Rising Tide Foundation Symposium ‘Earth’s Next Hundred Years’ the full list of lectures can be found here.] What Determines a “Limit to Growth”? This might seem like a rather ignorant or simplistic question to some. Many will think the answer rather obvious, that the Limit to Growth is determined by limited resources, of course!
Greatly depicted facts against globalist myths! Thank you so much for this. If someone can still argue against it - must one either be a complete fool or is being "enchanted" by the globalist's agenda with "benefit"?
Wow, major information density presented on the hot button third rail topic of the century! This could be a candidate for substack post of the year, and it's still only January. Got some reading to do now, but as Arnold said in the Terminator, I'll be back.
"So why don’t we have nuclear fusion yet?" Because, even the easiest fusion reaction to initiate – the combination of the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium, to form helium and an energetic neutron – requires a temperature of about 120 million C.
At $30,000 per gram, tritium is almost as precious as a diamond, but for fusion researchers the price is worth it. When tritium is combined at high temperatures with its sibling deuterium, the two gases can burn like the Sun.
But if ITER is ever completed, it will consume most of the world’s tritium, leaving little for reactors that come on line in 2055 or later, which also require tritium to jump start themselves.
Nor is more likely to be made in the future – quite the opposite. Today the world’s only commercial sources are the 19 Canada Deuterium Uranium (CANDU) nuclear reactors, each producing about half a kilogram a year as a waste product. Half of them will retire this decade.
This means the tritium stockpile of about 25 kilograms will peak by 2030 and begin a steady decline as it is sold off and decays.
Plan B would be to breed tritium, but for that you’d need an actual working fusion reactor. As mentioned in the preface above, ITER is a demonstration project to show that fusion is possible, but it won’t produce any power or breed more tritium even when it finally runs in 2035. Meanwhile it will be burning 1 kg of the precious 25 kg remaining. Fusion scientists wishing to fire up reactors after that may find that ITER already drank their milkshake.
Clery D (2022) Out of gas. A shortage of tritium fuel may leave fusion energy with an empty tank. Science 376.
Complexity rears its ugly head at every turn, while simplistic panaceas, such as carbon reduction, only serve to obscure the problem.
Two examples:
Estrogen from birth control pills passes through effluent treatment plants and enters the watershed, and from there, the food chain. What effect does this have on the macro and micro biota that lies in its path? We just don't know, but one thing is certain. No pharmaceutical company will ever finance such an investigation, nor will any institution that relies on that industry for it funding.
Tires. Billions of them. The problem of how mosquitoes are transported internationally in the scrap tire trade is now belatedly understood. What isn't addressed is the millions of tons of synthetic rubber dust that accumulates in the environment from the countless cars rolling down the nation's highways on a daily basis. What effect does this dust have on plant and animal life? Do these molecules mimic signalling proteins essential to life processes? How do they affect the organisms vital to soil fertility? What is their effect on pollinating insects, or predator insects which control undesirable species such as mosquitoes and ants? Do they enter the food chain, and by definition, our own bodies?
Questions unanswered, but let's reduce our carbon footprint because that's all that matters.
The population of the industrialized world is actually in decline, where any growth of population in those nations is entirely attributable to immigration. So, if industrialization leads to declining populations, then it makes sense to industrialize the developing world where most of the population growth is occurring. Of course this stands in the way of the rapacious profits made by exploiting those populations, the benefits of which accrue to the 1% currently wringing their hands over population growth, a portion of which is devoted to misleading the developed world about the actual source of the problem.
When talking about radiation it's important to distinguish between ionizing and non-ionizing. It's also important to consider the range and intensity of both.
Our understanding of the effects of electromagnetic (non-ionizing) radiation on life processes is still incomplete, not just for humans, but for birds, insects and microbiota. Serious questions remain surrounding the effects of high frequency radiation, and yet we charge ahead recklessly with 5 and 6 G communications. A valid question unrelated to the potential effects is quite simply, do we really need such speed, and if so what is it being used for?
I don't want to be exposed to high frequency radiation no matter how weak the dose, if all it's used for is to post pictures of your cat on Facebook or to watch Dancing With The Stars on your cell phone. Enough already. Get your priorities straight people.
"However, upon a closer inspection, we see that in the case of Chernobyl the number of deaths that were clearly attributed to Chernobyl were less than 100, which were directly related to the blast of the accident."
While accurate as far as immediate cause is concerned, this is misleading. If we count the number of people exposed directly (clean-up) or indirectly (proximity) then track their life expectancy relative to base line expectancy for the same population, we have premature deaths in the thousands. The actual numbers range from 1000 to 6000 depending on the methodology and assumptions used in the calculations, but the numbers are by no means insignificant, especially for those affected and their relatives.
Social factors also come into play. I don't know what the social attitude is in Ukraine, but in Japan, being born in Hiroshima or Nagasaki carries with it a social stigma insofar as the potential of birth defects is concerned. This is no doubt grossly exaggerated in the public imagination, but nonetheless still has an influence on people's attitudes, especially where marriage is concerned. I suspect a similar stigma will be attached to people from the Fukushima region.
Incidentally, Fukushima is only 150 km from my wife's family's farm in Niigata. Niigata is famous throughout Japan for its excellent rice. We don't live in Japan, so I can't say if the accident has had an affect on people's attitude toward rice grown in that region, but I can see how it might.
Greatly depicted facts against globalist myths! Thank you so much for this. If someone can still argue against it - must one either be a complete fool or is being "enchanted" by the globalist's agenda with "benefit"?
Before it was "un pc" to say so... John Lennon on that Malthusian myth...
https://twitter.com/historyinmemes/status/1620137447891025920?s=20&t=yCZ8GgJ9Az2ZtI9vIsGnZQ
Wow, major information density presented on the hot button third rail topic of the century! This could be a candidate for substack post of the year, and it's still only January. Got some reading to do now, but as Arnold said in the Terminator, I'll be back.
💕Wage Peace,
⭐️Keep the Faith,
#denaztheplanet!
Good article. Julien Simon may have deserved a tip of the hat, particularly for his successful bet against Paul ‘always wrong’ Ehrlich.
"So why don’t we have nuclear fusion yet?" Because, even the easiest fusion reaction to initiate – the combination of the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium, to form helium and an energetic neutron – requires a temperature of about 120 million C.
At $30,000 per gram, tritium is almost as precious as a diamond, but for fusion researchers the price is worth it. When tritium is combined at high temperatures with its sibling deuterium, the two gases can burn like the Sun.
But if ITER is ever completed, it will consume most of the world’s tritium, leaving little for reactors that come on line in 2055 or later, which also require tritium to jump start themselves.
Nor is more likely to be made in the future – quite the opposite. Today the world’s only commercial sources are the 19 Canada Deuterium Uranium (CANDU) nuclear reactors, each producing about half a kilogram a year as a waste product. Half of them will retire this decade.
This means the tritium stockpile of about 25 kilograms will peak by 2030 and begin a steady decline as it is sold off and decays.
Plan B would be to breed tritium, but for that you’d need an actual working fusion reactor. As mentioned in the preface above, ITER is a demonstration project to show that fusion is possible, but it won’t produce any power or breed more tritium even when it finally runs in 2035. Meanwhile it will be burning 1 kg of the precious 25 kg remaining. Fusion scientists wishing to fire up reactors after that may find that ITER already drank their milkshake.
Clery D (2022) Out of gas. A shortage of tritium fuel may leave fusion energy with an empty tank. Science 376.
Where is everybody? This should a busy site!
Complexity rears its ugly head at every turn, while simplistic panaceas, such as carbon reduction, only serve to obscure the problem.
Two examples:
Estrogen from birth control pills passes through effluent treatment plants and enters the watershed, and from there, the food chain. What effect does this have on the macro and micro biota that lies in its path? We just don't know, but one thing is certain. No pharmaceutical company will ever finance such an investigation, nor will any institution that relies on that industry for it funding.
Tires. Billions of them. The problem of how mosquitoes are transported internationally in the scrap tire trade is now belatedly understood. What isn't addressed is the millions of tons of synthetic rubber dust that accumulates in the environment from the countless cars rolling down the nation's highways on a daily basis. What effect does this dust have on plant and animal life? Do these molecules mimic signalling proteins essential to life processes? How do they affect the organisms vital to soil fertility? What is their effect on pollinating insects, or predator insects which control undesirable species such as mosquitoes and ants? Do they enter the food chain, and by definition, our own bodies?
Questions unanswered, but let's reduce our carbon footprint because that's all that matters.
The population of the industrialized world is actually in decline, where any growth of population in those nations is entirely attributable to immigration. So, if industrialization leads to declining populations, then it makes sense to industrialize the developing world where most of the population growth is occurring. Of course this stands in the way of the rapacious profits made by exploiting those populations, the benefits of which accrue to the 1% currently wringing their hands over population growth, a portion of which is devoted to misleading the developed world about the actual source of the problem.
When talking about radiation it's important to distinguish between ionizing and non-ionizing. It's also important to consider the range and intensity of both.
https://biologydictionary.net/ionizing-radiation/
https://biologydictionary.net/non-ionizing-radiation/
Our understanding of the effects of electromagnetic (non-ionizing) radiation on life processes is still incomplete, not just for humans, but for birds, insects and microbiota. Serious questions remain surrounding the effects of high frequency radiation, and yet we charge ahead recklessly with 5 and 6 G communications. A valid question unrelated to the potential effects is quite simply, do we really need such speed, and if so what is it being used for?
I don't want to be exposed to high frequency radiation no matter how weak the dose, if all it's used for is to post pictures of your cat on Facebook or to watch Dancing With The Stars on your cell phone. Enough already. Get your priorities straight people.
"However, upon a closer inspection, we see that in the case of Chernobyl the number of deaths that were clearly attributed to Chernobyl were less than 100, which were directly related to the blast of the accident."
While accurate as far as immediate cause is concerned, this is misleading. If we count the number of people exposed directly (clean-up) or indirectly (proximity) then track their life expectancy relative to base line expectancy for the same population, we have premature deaths in the thousands. The actual numbers range from 1000 to 6000 depending on the methodology and assumptions used in the calculations, but the numbers are by no means insignificant, especially for those affected and their relatives.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_due_to_the_Chernobyl_disaster
Social factors also come into play. I don't know what the social attitude is in Ukraine, but in Japan, being born in Hiroshima or Nagasaki carries with it a social stigma insofar as the potential of birth defects is concerned. This is no doubt grossly exaggerated in the public imagination, but nonetheless still has an influence on people's attitudes, especially where marriage is concerned. I suspect a similar stigma will be attached to people from the Fukushima region.
Incidentally, Fukushima is only 150 km from my wife's family's farm in Niigata. Niigata is famous throughout Japan for its excellent rice. We don't live in Japan, so I can't say if the accident has had an affect on people's attitude toward rice grown in that region, but I can see how it might.
Manufactured Landscapes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WdYLkj37Vk